The present invention relates in general to an appliance, such as an automatic washer or dryer, and more particularly to an appliance having a clothes holding drum which rotates about a horizontal axis.
A typical automatic dryer for drying articles such as clothes has an outer cabinet, a rotatable drum driven by a motor within the cabinet, a fan for drawing air in through the cabinet and passing it to the drum and a discharge duct for exhausting the air from the drum to the atmosphere. Usually, dryers of this type have one or more electrical heating elements located in the inlet air duct to heat the air before it passes to the drum. Alternatively, the heat is supplied from a source of gas. Conventionally, dryers of this type have a main on/off switch and an adjustable timer so that a user can select any one of a range of drying times. A heating control switch ultimately varies the amount of time power is supplied to the heating elements. Prior art automatic washers also have a rotatable drum or washtub within a cabinet.
Modern automatic washers and dryers typically are microprocessor controlled and the number of actual controls which the user has access to is less than the number of controls for older type dryers. Prior art control circuits for dryers using a microprocessor typically have involved complex circuitry. The present invention provides a simpler solution to the problem of providing a circuit in a microprocessor controlled dryer or washer for controlling the motor.